Legalized Marijuana Will Cause Profound Cultural Changes

American culture will shake at the rafters. The most obvious will be the impact on Big Pharma and the Liquor Lobby, but the ramifications will be much more subtle and far reaching.

First of all, as comedian Dennis Miller has mentioned, if Xanax and grass went head to head to see which is more beneficial, “Xanax would lose.” Weed is cheaper, healthier, more effective and more fun to use. Grass encourages social interaction, not isolation. And you don’t need an Rx from some hotshot doctor who owns you and overcharges you for a few minutes of service.

Xanax is an anti-depressant; marijuana is a natural euphoriant. There’s a big difference. The former is a laboratory concoction of white lab-coated, conservative prudes; the latter is a gift of nature with absolutely NO SIDE EFFECTS. If you overindulge smoke you don’t even get sick as with whiskey; you pass out and wake up without even a hangover. The normal response of people turning on the first time is to burst out laughing.

(See the podcast with Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Dean of Harvard Medical School, which I arranged some years ago when there were no legal marijuana states. Also, you can see the plug for Mirror Reversal at the bottom of the first page, the Atheist Novel to the right.)

The Liquor Lobby will be impacted big time. As hippies we’d telephone each other,”Hey man, whip out the Dylan, The Grand Funk Railroad, the Joe Cocker, and some weed, we’re all coming over.” Bars and lounges will lose because we didn’t need strangers overcharging us for a cocktail or glass of beer. We preferred to stay at home without cops spying on us and making petty judgments.

The gun lobby will lose. Personally speaking, grass is biophilic, I didn’t even like to look at the damn things—I still don’t.

Vanity fashion will lose. The ‘60s brought on the jeans revolution. We didn’t care about designer clothes. You were judged for being a “good guy” and somebody you can trust. Sure we dug ornate shirts and pants, but most of the time we made the clothes ourselves.

These stupid TV sit-coms with the canned laughter will go looking for viewers. We made our own show. We were insulted by TV actors and commercial marketers treating us like we were sixth graders and talking down to us and telling us what to consume. Celeb magazines will stay on the supermarket display stands untouched and unsold. Who cares which movie star got jilted? They’re mostly overambitious, perfidious, Machiavellian people. We have our own life.

I can go on and on with more cultural changes. Hope you’ll offer others.